Glenn Greenwald
Politics • Culture • Writing
Steve Bannon's Contempt Charges Reveal Historic Double Standard; Interview with RFK Jr.'s Running Mate Nicole Shanahan on the 2024 Election and More
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June 08, 2024
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Good evening. It's Thursday, June 6. 

Tonight: Steve Bannon, one of President Trump's top White House advisers in the first part of his presidency and currently one of his closest and most important allies, was ordered to surrender to a federal prison on July 1, three weeks from now. Bannon had been out on bail pending an appeal of his 2022 conviction on charges of refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena that ordered him to testify about the events of January 6; he had a variety of legal arguments as to why he was not required to do that. Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison by a court that rejected those defenses and was allowed to be out on bail pending appeal. The appellate court rejected his appeal, and now the judge has ordered him to surrender to prison, even though he has more appeals left. 

In addition to President Trump himself, who was just convicted of 34 felonies on obviously dubious and – no pun intended – trumped-up charges – Bannon is not the first top Trump aide to be jailed for alleged violations of a congressional subpoena. In March of this year, President Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, reported to a federal prison to serve a four-month sentence on similar charges. And, of course, a large group of key Trump White House officials and other allies, including General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and many others have also been convicted and imprisoned, or at least accused and convicted of crimes, all of which is unprecedented in all of American history. 

Indeed, Congress often issued subpoenas to Washington officials that are simply ignored or violated, in one way or the other, where these officials concoct excuses as to why they don't have to appear, that this conflict between the executive branch on the one hand and Congress on the other, is a central part of our system. It's been happening for decades if not centuries, and almost never do those events result in anything close to what has been done to Peter Navarro and now to Steve Bannon. We'll go through the relevant history to illustrate how, yet again, the Biden DOJ and Democratic prosecutors are so transparently weaponizing the legal system and judicial system against their political enemies for partisan ends. 

In general – as I learned firsthand when I started writing about politics in the second term of the Bush administration, and then into the Obama administration where there was a lot of talk at the time about the potential that Obama would prosecute Bush officials and CIA officials for committing crimes like torture, kidnapping and illegal domestic spying – the consensus in Washington politics and media – believe me, has long been for decades – that only banana republics prosecute their political enemies and prosecute their prior administration. I never agreed with that consensus. Indeed, I wrote countless articles against it and even a 2011 book arguing against it and titled “With Liberty and Justice for Some,” but these prosecutions of Trump and his allies do not represent an abandonment of that rotted Washington rule. If it did, I would be cheering for it. Like so many other things, it represents merely a temporary suspension of this Washington rule for one and only one political official named Donald Trump. 

Then: We will speak to Nicole Shanahan, now officially the vice presidential running mate of RFK, Jr. If polls hold up at all, that independent ticket will be one of the most successful independent presidential candidates in decades. Bobby Kennedy’s choice for a running mate baffled a lot of people. While Shanahan is reasonably well known in Silicon Valley – in part for accumulating a net worth estimated at $1 billion, largely, but not entirely, as a result of her marriage to one of the world's richest billionaires, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and in part due to her own accomplishments, an initiatives – very few American citizens had ever heard of Shanahan and know very little about her, in large part because she never held elected office of any kind. 

That does not mean that she has been uninterested in politics. She has indeed donated a large amount of money, primarily, if not exclusively, to Democratic Party candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg and the 2020 campaign of Joe Biden, as well as more left-wing candidates and causes. That, of course, raises a lot of questions about her current political views (which can reasonably change for a lot of people), her past political trajectory, and the role of big money in our politics. We'll talk to her about that, as well as her views on current U.S.-financed wars in Ukraine and Israel, the issue of online censorship, whistleblowers, and much more. 

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now. 


 

After I first began writing about politics, in late 2005, within the next couple of years, one of the issues I talked about most often, was how there was a two-tiered justice system in the United States, where financial leaders, and especially political elites, are largely immunized from the rule of law. Oftentimes, this was taking place in the controversy over many obvious illegal programs that the Bush and Cheney administration had adopted in the name of the War on Terror, torturing detainees, kidnaping those people off the streets of Europe and sending them with no due process to Syria or Egypt to be tortured, or spying on American citizens without the warrants required by law. These were all crimes. And when Barack Obama ran in 2008, he was often asked whether he believed that those crimes should be prosecuted. He always gave the same answer, which is “Absolutely. Nobody's above the law and one of the first things I'm going to do when I win is direct my attorney general to investigate whether crimes were committed there and whether or not there should be prosecutions.” And yet, the minute he got into office, the media started haranguing him, that you don't go and prosecute your political adversaries in the United States, you don't go and prosecute prior administrations. This is only done in banana republics, not in the United States. 

My argument always was: well, what if they actually did commit crimes? What if the prior administration actually committed crimes? What if your political adversaries committed crimes? Are they supposed to be exempt from the same rule of law that applies to all other citizens? If this were a case where the consensus that has long existed in Washington by the media and politicians – that you don't go and prosecute your political adversaries or the prior administration – if that were being really lifted permanently because journalism and politics realized that were wrong, I'd be the first to applaud. That's not what's happening here.

Another issue that I've long talked about is how journalism is corrupt when it does nothing more than, say, “The Republicans say this, the Democrats say this, and it's not up for us to decide. We're just going to report what officials say in the U.S. government. We're not going to tell you if it's true or false.” And so, when the media started after Trump saying, “oh, we're going to start calling him a liar all the time,” I would also be cheering if it really meant an abandonment of that kind of lazy journalism, that kind of corrupting journalism where you don't investigate what powerful people claim, you just report it and mimic it and then leave it at that. But again, this practice is only for Trump. You will never hear of them saying those kinds of things about Joe Biden or Democratic Party officials or anyone else. So, this isn't a form of progress or evolution in how we understand things. This is obviously the political persecution and the judicial and legal persecution of Trump and his closest allies, not in the name of equal justice for all, but solely in the name of weaponizing the judicial system against a political movement that they regard with great fear that they will do anything to stop, including abusing the legal system.

From The Wall Street Journal earlier today on the Steve Bannon case:

 

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A federal judge Thursday ordered Steve Bannon to surrender by July 1 to serve a four-month prison sentence for defying the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In a unanimous decision last month, a three-judge appeals court panel rejected Bannon’s arguments that his conviction wasn’t valid because he was following his lawyer’s advice when he refused to comply with a House subpoena demanding documents and testimony. The panel said Bannon’s advice-of-counsel defense wasn’t valid in contempt-of-Congress cases and would impede the legislature’s investigative authority.

Bannon was the first of two former Trump White House officials to face prosecution for defying the House panel. A year after Bannon’s conviction, former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro was found guilty of defying the committee and later sentenced to four months in prison. Both cases stemmed from House referrals recommending that the Justice Department bring prosecutions. (The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2024)

 

Someone who hasn't looked at these issues for very long might say, well, if Congress issues a subpoena, you're legally required to obey it. If you don't obey it, or you don't give the documents that they asked for and the testimony that they demand, truthfully, you will be held in contempt of Congress, and that is a crime. The problem is that there is a long history of the executive branch refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas on the grounds that they have the power as the executive branch - which is supposed to be separate from the legislative power - that they have, rights as the executive branch not to turn over information or appear to testify when a co-equal branch, which is Congress, demands their appearance. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro are by far not the first people who were in the executive branch to give a middle finger to Congress when they've issued a subpoena and yet you'd be hard-pressed to find another case where people explicitly were held in contempt of congressional subpoenas, but who were referred to the Justice Department and/or then prosecuted by the Justice Department for it. 

Here, this is a case where the Biden Justice Department took a referral from a Democratic-run committee, the January 6 committee that was created under Nancy Pelosi's speakership, a committee where for the first time in the history of our country, the House speaker rejected the members that the minority, the Republicans, wanted to put on that committee, the first time in history that a House speaker refused to impanel the members of Congress indicated as members of that committee by the House minority leader and instead, as a result, no Republicans agreed to serve on that committee in protest, except for two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who obviously are far more aligned with the Democratic Party when it comes to January 6. So, in effect, it was a full partisan panel and so the Democrats in Congress referred these contempt citations to the Biden Justice Department, which in turn decided to prosecute – something almost unprecedented in our history. 

Let me give you a few similar cases to understand what a complete deviation this is from how things have typically been done in Washington. Here, from CNN, in February 2008, during the Bush administration. 


U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey Friday said he will not ask a federal grand jury to investigate whether two top Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday asked Mukasey to look into whether White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers committed contempt of Congress in the investigation of the 2006 firings of several U.S. attorneys.

Earlier this month, the House voted to find Bolten and Miers in contempt of Congress and pursue charges against them.

The White House argues that forcing the aides to testify would violate the Constitution's separation of powers. (CNN, February 29, 2008)

 

And that has been the longstanding view in Washington, that if Congress orders a private citizen to appear for a legitimate investigation, there are all kinds of limits on what Congress is permitted to investigate. And I think it's extremely questionable whether or not they had the authority to investigate private citizens for January 6, because in general, the only two types of investigations that Congress is permitted to initiate are one, to exercise oversight over the executive branch, and number two, to hold hearings to decide what legislation they want to pass. So, if they're, for example, thinking about legislation related to a certain industry, you call the people in that industry, you call the activists against that industry, and you hear from all the sides, and then you decide what kind of legislation is appropriate. That's one example of when Congress can convene investigative hearings. The other is solely to investigate executive branch officials, it's never to investigate private citizens. And yet, that's exactly what the January 6 committee here did. Those precedents saying that Congress can investigate private citizens for their political views came out of the McCarthy hearings when the Supreme Court – twice – in the 1950s, told Congress that they were vastly exceeding the scope of their investigative powers by trying to investigate and harass people for their political views. And that's exactly what the January 6 Committee did. But even leaving all that partisanship and all that precedent aside, there have been so many other cases where Congress declared a certain executive official to be in contempt of Congress, and it never went to the point where Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro's cases have gone.

 

Here from CBS News, in June 2012, another example:

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One day after the House voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide documents relating to the Fast and Furious gunwalking program […] 

 

The White House says Eric Holder, the Obama attorney general, won't be prosecuted for contempt. Many of you may not even remember what that was, but it was a scandal involving the Justice Department whether they were permitting all kinds of serious weapons to come in through the Mexican border through illegal immigration. And the Congress was investigating that Eric Holder refused to turn over documents the House held him in contempt.

White House spokesperson Jay Carney said the criminal prosecution of the contempt charges will not move forward. He said the president's assertion of executive privilege over the related documents makes the matter moot.

In a letter sent to the House Speaker John Boehner, Deputy Attorney General James Cole confirmed that Justice would not move forward with contempt prosecution. (CBS News, June 29, 2012)

 

I'll take you all the way back to 1983, during the first term of the Reagan administration, where you can see just how long standing this  tradition is that has not resulted in these kinds of prosecutions. From The New York Times, March 1983. 



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There you see the headline, the attorney general that was Ronald Reagan's attorney general, William French Smith, defends action by the Justice Department in the contempt case.

 

Under sharp questioning today by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General William French Smith repeatedly maintained that there was no way to prevent conflicts between the executive and legislative branches like the battle over access to Environmental Protection Agency documents.

 

So Congress was trying to get documents to investigate what the Reagan administration was doing with the Environmental Protection Agency, and EPA officials and others refused to hand them over, claiming that that was the executive prerogative to formulate policy, and Congress had no right to intrude. When William Smith went before Congress and they grilled him on why he wasn't prosecuting them and why the Justice Department was, he said,

 

There is ''built-in conflict'' and tension between the branches, Mr. Smith asserted, adding, ''As long as we have this system of government, I don't see how we can avoid the kind of problem we've had here.''

 

…several committee members, expressing dissatisfaction with Mr. Smith's responses, demanded a guarantee that the House would not be ignored the next time it cited an official in the executive branch for contempt and sought to have the case prosecuted.

 

The dispute involves the Justice Department's action in the contempt case against the head of the environmental agency, Anne McGill Burford, who was cited for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents. 

 

These are all causing very ancient memories to return from an old political scandal. But this really was the same conflict between the EPA and Congress. The EPA director, Anne Burford, was highly controversial. She was extremely conservative and put in charge of the EPA, was a very pro-industry anti-environmentalist. The House wanted to investigate her and she refused to turn over documents and the Reagan Justice Department refused to prosecute her for it.

 

Representative Peter W. Rodino Jr., the New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the committee, told Mr. Smith that by law, the United States Attorney had a ''mandatory'' duty to present the contempt case to a grand jury. But he suggested that the department seemed to believe it was free to make its own decision on whether to prosecute. (The New York Times, March 16, 1983)

 

So, just look at how many cases involving Republican and Democratic administrations, where members of the executive branch or people close to the president, refused to turn over information demanded by subpoena to congressional committees who were trying to investigate the executive branch. Typically, because of this notion that the two branches are co-equal, one is not in charge of the other, Nancy Pelosi can't pick up the phone and order Donald Trump to appear before Congress or order his White House chief of staff to appear before Congress. That would make the Congress supreme and not a co-equal branch. And that's why those two branches of government are constantly fighting with one another over when they have to turn over documents. It's an inherent and natural part of our system that has often been resolved politically, but rarely with prosecutions, even when, as in the case of Eric Holder and other instances, Congress declared that official in contempt of Congress, and referred the contempt charges to the Justice Department. 

There's just no denying that these are long-standing precedents in Washington, for better or for worse. Again, I'm against a lot of them, I'd be the first one to party if they were really undone but that's not what's happening here. This is a one-time-only suspension of these long-standing rules, not an abandonment of them, in the name of criminalizing the Trump movement and doing everything to sabotage Donald Trump's attempt to return to office. 

As I suggested at the start, this ethos in Washington was a major part of my journalism for the first ten years. It was a topic on which I focused incessantly, and that was because I had started writing about the War on Terror, and I began to see that a lot of what was being done by the Bush and Cheney administration and the neocons who ran the relevant agencies was not just misguided or dangerous or destructive but was illegal, criminal. That definitely included the way the Bush administration was spying on American citizens without the warrants required by law, something that Congress retroactively legalized in 2008 and that became the FISA  law that now gets renewed all the time and that just got recently renewed to allow spying on American citizens with no warrants but, at the time, it was illegal and criminal. The same is true for torturing detainees, which had always been a crime in the United States, kidnapping with no due process and other similar ones as well. And so every time I was arguing that these were crimes and that they should be prosecuted, what I always heard from longtime journalists and media and the consensus in Washington was that, well, it doesn't really matter if those acts are illegal or not, because here in Washington, we don't prosecute top-level political officials for the acts they've undertaken as part of their executive branch duties. That only happens in Banana Republics. That's called criminalizing policy differences or criminalizing legal disputes between the two branches and you just don't do that, otherwise, you can have a never-ending cycle of retribution where one party is putting the other in prison the minute it gets hold of the levers of the Justice Department. 

One of the first debates I ever had with a classic member of the corporate media was when NBC News’s Chuck Todd, went on the air and basically scoffed at the idea – and this is in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration – that there should be any investigations at all, criminal investigations, of Bush officials or what Bush officials did in the past, CIA officials did, or the NSA did, because this is a distraction, he said. It doesn't really matter. It's not the stuff that Obama should be doing. He should be caring about appearing as a centrist, those sorts of things. In Washington, we just simply don't prosecute prior administrations, and I can't tell you how many columns like that were written, how many TV pundits went on cable news and said that it was the overwhelming consensus. I can't think of anyone in corporate media who believed that President Obama should investigate or prosecute prior acts in the Bush administration. In fact, so intense was the media pressure on Obama, that despite promising repeatedly in the 2008 campaign that he would give it to his attorney general with the instructions to look into it, to criminally investigate it, and to prosecute if there were reasonable grounds for believing crimes were committed, saying, I'm not going to be involved, this is a legal question, nobody's above the law, I'll ask my attorney general to look at it. Two months into office, Obama announced that he was not going to allow any prosecutions of anyone in the prior administration, including in the CIA, for any of these crimes. Pronouncing “It's more important that we look forward than backward,” which never made any sense on its own terms, because all criminal prosecutions, by definition, require looking backward. By definition, their acts were undertaken in the past. When it comes to the prior administration, we're going to adopt the view that we don't look backward, we only look forward for the good of the country or whatever, then it is a complete immunity or exemption for politicians from being prosecuted by the law in the same way that ordinary American citizens are prosecuted. And I was indignant about this. I wrote article after article. I wrote, as I said, the 2011 book arguing against this mindset. 

In 2009, I had a big enough platform that I really couldn't be ignored any longer by people in the corporate media, and so I wrote an article about Chuck Todd's comments and heavily criticized him, and he said, hey, I wish you had talked to me before. And I said, well, I don't think I have the obligation. I'm just criticizing your public remarks. But I'd love to engage you on this. And why don't you come on and we'll do a podcast, and I can ask you questions and you can ask me questions and we'll debate this issue. 

 

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And here you see The Huffington Post, in August 2009, reporting on that debate. I'm just going to give you one passage from this discussion that I had with him to illustrate to you how adamant these people were that we cannot have prosecutions of our political adversaries or our past administrations. 

 

GG: Let me ask you about that, then. If a president can find, as a president always will be able to find, some low-level functionary in the Justice Department -- a John Yoo -- to write a memo authorizing whatever it is the president wants to do, and to say that it's legal, then you think the president ought to be immune from prosecution whenever he breaks the law, as long as he has a permission slip from the Justice Department? I mean, that's the argument that's being made. Don't you think that's extremely dangerous?

 

CT: That could be dangerous, but let me tell you this: Is it healthy for our reputation around the world - and this I think is that we have TO do what other countries do more often than not, so-called democracies that struggle with their democracy, and sit there and always PUT the previous administration on trial - you don't think that we start having retributions on this going forward?

 

Look, I am no way excusing torture. I'm not excusing torture, and I bristle at the attack when it comes on this specific issue. But I think the political reality in this, and, I understand where you're coming from, you're just saying, just because something's politically tough doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. That's, I don't disagree with you from 30,000 feet. And that is an idealistic view of this thing. Then you have the realistic view of how this town works, and what would happen, and is it good for our reputation around the world if we're essentially putting on trial the previous administration? We would look at another country doing that, and say, geez, boy, this is — (The Huffington Post, August 17, 2009)

 

And the reason I was so interested in having this conversation with Chuck Todd is not because he was some aberrational voice in the U.S. media. Just look at this ethos here: “the hardcore reality,” “if you know how Washington works” as you go around prosecuting your political opponents, people in the other party, people from the prior administration,” this is what they had been saying for decades – for decades. It's how they excuse the pardon of Richard Nixon by Gerald Ford, even though the evidence was overwhelming that you could have convicted Richard Nixon of crimes the way you did with many of his top aides, all of whom got pardoned. During the Reagan administration, there was an Iran-Contra scandal that involved highly likely criminality on the part of Reagan officials who wanted to fund the Contras in a civil war in Nicaragua, even though Congress had passed a law saying any funding of the Contras in Nicaragua is illegal and hereby banned. The executive branch ignored that law, but they couldn't get funds from Congress. So, what they did was they sold highly sophisticated missiles and other weapons to Iran, got the cash at the White House in secret accounts, and then sent that money secretly to fund the Contras, even though Congress had said, you can't. A lot of the top officials in the Reagan administration were at risk of being prosecuted, including George Bush, the then-vice president. And the minute George Bush got elected, the first thing he did was issue a pardon of Caspar Weinberger and every other Reagan administration official, and most people in the media applauded that and said, “Yeah, we can't be distracted by these kinds of prosecutions.” 

We can't be prosecuting people in Washington. It's too much of a distraction. It makes us seem like a banana republic. This has been the argument for so long. And if I really believed that this was finally being lifted, and the idea was, look, we're going to prosecute people, no matter how powerful they are in Washington, any time they break the law, I would be the happiest person. I'd be the first one to stand up and cheer. But it's so obvious that's not what's happening. There's no remorse or regret about how this was done previously. The minute Trump is out of the scene, they're going to return right again to this rule. It's a one-time exception only, as so many things are, for abusing and weaponizing the justice system against one person and one person only, and that is Donald Trump. 

 




Nicole Shanahan is in many respects a classic American success story. She grew up in poverty, worked her way through college and Law School, including by working in various, hourly jobs like a maid and a paralegal, and is now a 38-year-old highly respected lawyer in Silicon Valley. She's also one of the richest women in the world, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion that is largely, though not entirely, a result of her marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. But most notable, she is now the running mate of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. If polls are even remotely correct, they will likely be the most significant independent presidential candidacy in many years. 

Many things made Shanahan's choice as vice presidential candidate somewhat notable, including the fact that she had never held political office previously. But that is also true of the man who leads the ticket, RFK, Jr. and was also true of someone named Donald Trump before his 2016 victory. Whatever else is true, she's an extremely interesting person with a very rich and I would say vintage American life. And she also has a robust political trajectory, and we are delighted to welcome her tonight to System Update. 


G. Greenwald: It's great to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. 

 

Nicole Shanahan: Thanks for having me, Glenn. And just a quick correction: my mom was a maid. But my first job was busing tables, and I just wanted to. 

 

G. Greenwald: I apologize for that, but that story is true, that you did grow up without any advantages, essentially in poverty, had to work your way through college and Law School and built up what you became, which I think everybody can and should respect. Let me start by asking you about just a couple of, I think, crucial issues, including the two wars that our country is currently financing, arming and supporting. The first one is in Ukraine. When I had RFK, Jr. on my show several months ago, we spent a lot of time talking about his view on that war. And since then, the war has gotten even worse, from the perspective of the Ukrainians. I think it's a consensus that the Ukrainian military is in deep trouble, that the Russians are advancing, and that the idea that they could ever expel Russian troops from all of Ukraine is a pipe dream that will never happen. Do you support the ongoing financing by the U.S. government of the war in Ukraine? And if not, what do you think should be done to try and bring about a resolution? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: Well, first of all, this war should have never happened. The United States should have never egged it on as it has. The U.S. has been involved in Ukrainian affairs for decades now. We've been involved in their elections and have been pushing certain kinds of candidates that have been anti-Russia and against normalization of trade and other relationships with Russia. And so the moment that we're in right now, watching Ukrainian lives lost at incredible rates, young men getting dragged into duty who have no interest in fighting and risking their lives, you have the will of the people wanting peace with Russia in this moment. I was devastated when the foreign aid bill went out. Sending an additional, I believe it was $70 billion, to finance this war. At this moment, I think that it is imperative for the United States to understand what is going on. The United States has intentionally aggravated a situation and has continued to escalate it. It is looking at deploying troops. It has allowed the Ukrainian military to use U.S., military supplies. I mean, every day there's a new escalation. That is taking us to a point of a World War III scale risk for our people. And we need to think about what our job is right now. And our job is to take care of this country and not escalate foreign wars. 

 

G. Greenwald: Concerning that last argument that our job as a country, or the government's duty – it seems so basic, but for whatever reason, it has to be debated because so often it's not done – the U.S. government's primary duty is, as you said, to take care of our citizens here at home. Our citizens are suffering. Communities are being ravaged by all kinds of pathologies. People are in economic difficulty. And so, as you say, why should we be sending $60 billion to Ukraine to fuel a highly futile war? I want to know whether you apply that same line of thinking to the billions and billions of dollars that we're sending to Israel to finance and arm its war against Gaza, one that has resulted in more civilian casualties by a long distance than the one in Ukraine. 

 

Nicole Shanahan: I think that the U.S. sending funds to Israel to support the Iron Dome makes a lot of sense. I've supported that in the past. I think, historically, it's been a great way to show support for the state of Israel. I believe October 7 was one of the worst terrorist attacks I've witnessed in my lifetime and might be the worst terrorist attack I will witness in my lifetime. And I do think a response was warranted. I think that when I think about Israel participating in wars of the past and the role that the United States played, you know, I often think of leadership like Golda Meir, who ended the Yom Kippur War, in about a month, and she was fighting on multiple fronts, against multiple armies. And what I see right now happening on the ground in Gaza is devastating. I think there are arguments to be made that we've long past the point of a cease-fire. I think there are lots of arguments to be made that Israel should be showing more restraint. You know, Bobby and I, this is one of the areas that we have the most heated debate. And I think that there's an argument that the United States should have delivered the last aid package to Israel with greater affirmation as to how that money would be spent. We're in a moment right now that I really don't think we should have been in. And you have to go back historically to really look at the United States' involvement in the Middle East. There's a direct line between our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hamas. Israel thinks that - and many others do as well - that a two-state system is not possible in a world in which Hamas is running Gaza. And I tend to agree with that. But is it possible or likely that the Israeli military is going to be successful in destroying Hamas in totality, at this moment? I don't think so. And I think that was actually clear as early as February. And so I think that at this moment, the United States really needs to take responsibility for what it's done to arrive at this moment. And I do think that there needs to be greater coordination, greater levels of sophistication in how we're operating ourselves in the Middle East at this moment. 

 

G. Greenwald: So when you began, you started talking about funding the Iron Dome, which is a purely defensive system that prevents Israel from being attacked with rockets and other types of missiles, but we're not just funding that. We're, of course, funding all their offensive weapons. Most of the bombs being dropped on civilians in Gaza have been made in the USA and the whole world knows that. I guess what I'm wondering is if the advocates of U.S. financing of the war in Ukraine will say: “we're not helping Ukraine conquer territory and we're not helping Ukraine invade other countries either. It's basically like an iron dome. We're just giving them money to defend their country against aggression and invasion by the Russians.” What is the difference between Ukraine on the one hand and Israel on the other, in your view, when it comes to the question of whether we should be financing their wars? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: I think the primary difference is what is being asked for in these conflicts. So, if you look at Russia's history with Ukraine, what is being asked for is the normalization of the trade relationship between Ukrainian leadership and Russia. And tons of historical records show that Russia has been attempting to create a trade route and access point to the Black Sea. And there's a reasonableness there that I think that most people can objectively say this war could have been avoided. I think when you look at what's been going on in Israel and Gaza and you talk to Israelis, they've been fired at, by Hamas, for so many years, and you talk to the average Israeli who's in their 40s, and they've been now drafted into so many different wars. And October 7 is very different - and I'm just speaking morally. October 7 had a very different effect on the consciousness of humanity and I think that certainly, most people would agree that a response was necessary based on the October 7 attack. There was reprehensible behavior. But I think where the majority of people are in their consciousness at this moment as well is very much wishing for greater restraint from Israel, which has an incredibly sophisticated army compared to Hamas. And I think that given the complexity of the region - and, again, the U.S. has contributed a lot to exacerbating this complexity - there are fundamental differences between these two wars. But that being said, neither one needs to continue, as it has been currently, and there are paths to de-escalation available that this administration is fully and capable of executing right now. 

 

G. Greenwald: Let me just switch gears a little bit, when your selection as vice presidential candidate was announced, there was a lot of discourse suggesting or claiming that one of the reasons, if not the main reason for your selection was that you have a great ability to self-finance an independent campaign. I'm somebody who has long said that the way in which the two parties have constructed this kind of duopoly means that the only way you can succeed as an independent candidate is if you have something like a billionaire on the ticket who can fund the campaign. Nonetheless, I just want to understand, was that part of the conversation as part of the selection process, whether or not you were willing to donate money? How much money do you intend to donate to this campaign?

 

Nicole Shanahan: I can't give you an exact dollar amount. We're in June right now. June, historically for independent candidates, has been very challenging. That's usually when the other two parties really ramp up their PR and media spend and most of that media spend typically goes towards taking out the independent candidate first and then, you know, their opposing party candidate. And I am of the belief that this is an election unlike any other. We have a standing president running for reelection who is clearly showing signs of rapid decline. We have another president who has just recently been convicted of a felony. And we've got now an independent candidate who was the only outspoken public figure during a pandemic that was calling out the origins of a virus and calling out government officials and it’s clear that he was entirely correct. So, my involvement and I feel like my responsibility right now, being on this ticket is to first and foremost make sure he's on every single ballot. And I will contribute as much as it takes to make that a reality. 

 

G. Greenwald: I totally respect that and I understand that argument. And like I said, I'm somebody who in the past has said if you want to be an independent candidate, if you want to challenge the two parties, you know, unfortunately, the only way to do that is if you have somebody in the one or the other slots who basically is a billionaire and can self-finance the campaign to compete with the two parties because that's how they've constructed the system. I'm just wondering, though, when people look at your selection and our political system in general, which you have no role in creating, but the idea that very wealthy people obviously have a much bigger say than ordinary Americans in exerting power in Washington and how laws are passed. You've been a big donor for political candidates for quite some time, do you regard the role of big money in politics as a major problem for democracy, and if so, what kind of reforms would you support? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: I think it's a huge problem. I think Citizens United turned this country into a kleptocracy overnight. And I believe that individual donors should certainly have limits and that independents should be free to run without having to spend this kind of money. The ballot requirements that we've seen are arbitrary and ludicrous. Each state is different. Their requirements are crushing. We have an enormous legal team just to deal with that piece. The thing that has made me really excited is that I recently met with somebody at an organization called American Promise and they are going state by state to try to pass a constitutional amendment that would set contribution limits for both individuals and corporations. Twenty-two states have endorsed it, and it seems to be something that Americans want, by a large margin of the population. The grand majority of Americans want there to be limits, and I am one of them. 

 

G. Greenwald: You referenced earlier the recent conviction in the Manhattan courtroom of former president Donald Trump. Today, before speaking to you, I was talking about the order compelling Steve Bannon, the president's former top White House official, to surrender to federal prison on July 1 for contempt of Congress charges, a charge for which people are very rarely imprisoned. Do you see the prosecution of Trump on these specific charges, the one about the accounting irregularities for hush fund payments, and the other prosecutions of so many people around the Trump orbit as a vindication of the rule of law? Or do you think it's an example of Democrats and others in the establishment weaponizing the justice system to attack their political enemies? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: There's been evidence from both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party using the judicial system and the Department of Justice against political opponents. We have become so divided and polarized in this country that there is no branch of government that hasn't somehow been corrupted by these party lines. I think that they've both been guilty. You can point at many areas where Republicans have done similar things and Democrats have done similar. I mean, no greater example is what happened to President Trump. But the case itself, if you are just objectively looking at how the case was conducted, is a hush money trial that didn't have the correct jury instructions in the hands of the jury. And there were just so many things about it that make you really question the objectivity of the Justice Department at this moment. The Justice Department has always been the last resort. It's been that last layer of defense in protecting our civil liberties in this country, normalcy in this country, objectivity, and the rule of law. To have it be toyed with in this way, to have it be manipulated and distorted, I think is the number one thing. It's kind of the last straw for many people in this country; they feel that we've slipped into an autocratic environment where the rule of law is really no longer the rule of law but the rule of the parties. It's incredibly concerning on so many levels. And I think it has a ripple effect as well. 

 

G. Greenwald: So, I referenced earlier the history that you've had as a big dollar donor in politics, from what I can tell, maybe I'm wrong, but the overwhelming majority of your big dollar donations, if not all of them, have gone to Democratic Party candidates, including both kinds of mainstream centrist types like Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign, Pete Buttigieg, his presidential campaign, but also […]

 

Nicole Shanahan: And Marianne Williamson. In 2020.

 

G. Greenwald: I was about to say Marianne Williamson. You supported her, as well as some of the reform-minded prosecutors, including in San Francisco, which is a criminal justice reform cause often associated with the left - although Donald Trump was the first president to sign a criminal justice reform in a long time. Nonetheless, you were donating to classic Democrats. You were a registered member of the Democratic Party until this year when you were going to run as an independent. You alluded earlier to President Biden's obvious rapid decline in cognitive function and ability. But is that all that concerns you about Biden and the Democrats, or is there anything else or other things that have caused you to change your mind about the Democratic Party? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: To be completely honest with you, Biden's health is secondary to – and secondary by a long margin – the enormous corruption I've seen in the party. So, in 2020, I didn't support Biden. I supported Hillary but not with enthusiasm. But it was in 2020 that I realized that the Democratic primary had been completely broken. I knew that Bernie was likely to win the primary in 2016. In fact, I think he won. That was the first real big crack in the DNC that I saw. In 2020, it was truly, very obvious that there was no more Democratic primary. No one could run a fair shot at beating the central democratic dynastic line. And it was very clear that Biden was the only one who was going to get a shot at getting on the ticket. My experience, I mean, this would take hours and hours to unpack, but I've had such excruciatingly disappointing experiences with the leadership of the Democrats. I've heard things said to me and I've seen things done that are incredibly contradictory. They're really pathetic in terms of what the party cares about and prioritizes. There's been almost no interest in addressing the root causes of many of this country's biggest issues, including chronic disease and including budget adjustments that need to be made. They throw around money. They want to win at all costs. Once they win, they're not focused on the American people. They are focused on these auxiliary functions of government. And it's very clear that they have built up this enormous kleptocracy in our agencies. There was no way for me to be able to continue, to take any of it seriously. I couldn't support it anymore. And, you know, you said I've previously supported many progressive DAs. I've also recalled DAs as well that didn't do their jobs. The first I DA supported was actually a former police chief. And he did a pretty good job in San Francisco […]

 

G. Greenwald: That was George Gascón, right? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: George Gascón. Yes. A very much liked police officer. He ran on bringing balance to the system and communication and partnership between the DA's office and the police department. But he also wanted to create trust and make sure that there was no bias that could be called into question, and he wanted to make sure that the police department had a lot of integrity and trust. 

 

G. Greenwald: Yeah, I did think the donation to Marianne Williamson was interesting, in part because her major critique is aimed at least as much at the Democratic Party, as the Republican Party. She often sounds like more of an independent candidate criticizing both parties. A lot of times when people who become very disappointed in the Democratic Party come to see them as pathetic as you said – I empathize a lot with that trajectory – a lot of those people still in the back of their mind, believe that at the end of the day, Democrats are still a little bit better than the Republicans. In this case, I guess, especially under Donald Trump. Is that a view that you share - that if there were no independent candidate, if there were only Democrats or Republicans, that people should vote for the Democratic Party? Are you not prepared to say that one is better than the other at this point? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: I think that there is a clear uniparty and nothing made that more obvious than the way Congress came together in this last session. There is no way that I could swing over and support Donald Trump. I know too much about his record. He had a Raytheon lobbyist running the secretary of defense. He had his loyalists, which represented all kinds of corporate interests, fill his cabinet. He hasn't blinked twice about the fact that he was responsible for Operation Warp Speed had enabled Fauci very blindly to go ahead and conduct the pandemic response. He intentionally pulled the investigation on Pfizer. He's done so many things that, you know, that are just as pitiful as the Democratic Party has done. You know, I like Liberty Republicans. I think that if there's some future where the two-party system returns to any sense of sanity, I could see myself becoming a Liberty Republican alongside individuals like, you know, I think Thomas Massie has done great things for this country. I think that Ron Paul's done incredible things for this country. I think Rand Paul has been really fighting the good fight for this country. And then I also see some good progressives, you know, I think Dean Phillips, has done some very good and interesting things as well. So there are still signs that the two parties can be salvaged. I don't know that we will get there, though, if we just keep doing these huge swings. And, you know, my theory right now is that Trump is peaking, in large part, due to the help of the Democrats and the general understanding in America that the judicial system has been corrupted to support Democrats in this election by prosecuting Trump. But that backfired on them. He's raised over $100 million since the conviction. 

 

G. Greenwald: I just have a couple of more questions in the little bit of time that we have left. I want to respect your time. So, I have a lot of questions for you to come back on, but, for now, I want to ask you about this: since 2016, when there was this sort of trauma to the system of the establishment, Donald Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton, but also Brexit, there's been this kind of systematic attempt to gain control over the kind of information and speech that is permitted to flow on the Internet. There have been governments around the world, including our own government and our intelligence agencies, who have created excuses to either censor the Internet directly or to coerce Big Tech platforms to do it for them. Usually, the justifications are things like, well, we have to combat disinformation as if the government can decree truth and falsity, or we have to combat hate speech or things that are some kind of a threat to our national security. Where do you fall in that debate? Do you believe that there are any reasons that the government or Big Tech should be censoring political speech or on the Internet, other than in obvious cases where crimes are being committed, like fraud or things like that, but when it comes to political speech, do you support the censorship or suppression of any of those views? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: I mean, you can't love this country and also support the censorship. I love this country very deeply. I love this country because of the Constitution. I, in part, went to Law School because of the fact that I believe so deeply in the power of the Constitution to protect individual liberties. And I believe these basic liberties, such as freedom of speech, are what make this country, the country that it is, a country of hope, a country of honor, a country of innovation, a country of living out one's dream. The censorship that has occurred since 2016, especially with the use of AI to censor speech automatically, and these large language models, which are programmed specifically to demarcate categories of speech that will be automatically banned, has been one of the reasons why – I'm sitting here in Silicon Valley right now – I have decided to rebel against Silicon Valley. Part of me joining Bobby Kennedy's ticket is this rebellion. Bobby Kennedy has been censored more than any political candidate in my lifetime that I'm aware of. And I have joined this ticket in part because I am an insider. I know how this happened. I saw it happen. I know why it's happened, and I know exactly how to unwind it. And if given the opportunity, I will on my first opportunity, go into these agencies and take out and disable all of these AI censors. I will also understand the exact points of, you know, government capture of the corporations and the Big Tech platforms. They have, you know, it's not just use or coerce. It's a combination of coercion and knowing and willful partnership. And I've seen it. 

 

G. Greenwald: Yeah. That is interesting that you kind of come from it with that perspective. And so much of the censorship is done by AI. 

All right. Last question. When I had Bobby Kennedy on my show, he said that one of the things he would support almost immediately was pardoning both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, both of whom have essentially been turned into dissidents for the crime of exposing the crimes of the secret part of our government, the U.S. Security State. Do you agree with that position? And more importantly, how do you see the dangers posed by that part of our government that has no democratic accountability, that works in complete secrecy, that's independent of any party change that we might vote for the CIA, the NSA? How do you see that part of the government? 

 

Nicole Shanahan: Ron Paul said in his libertarian convention speech that there was a coup when JFK was assassinated. And I don't think there's any candidate in history that is going to be able to unravel the shadow government more than Bobby Kennedy, Jr. can and will do. I am fully supportive of the need for that. I think that it is critical to reclaim this nation as a free and stable republic. Assange is a hero. And I think that what he has done through this broader cypherpunk movement is to protect the Internet, which is where most Americans, and especially young Americans, are living out their lives today. It is a forum of engagement, exchanging information, building companies and building coalitions. And if the Internet is not a free place, for people to be able to expose and have conversations about what is going on with their governments, then we've lost the most dominant speech we have, which is, you know, the speech that we have over digital platforms. So, I believe Assange is 100% a hero and it is so necessary. Trump had a chance to do it and he didn't. And I don't understand why he didn’t, because, to me, one of the most obvious and easy decisions he could have made was to pardon Assange. Snowden is a whistleblower. We are a country that has historically protected overseas whistleblowers. Why do we prosecute our own? It's incredibly hypocritical. 

 

G. Greenwald: Well, Miss Shanahan, you gave us a lot of your time. I found the conversation very interesting. We'd love to have you back on, at some point in the future. And I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to us tonight. 

 

Nicole Shanahan: Thanks for having me. It was nice to meet you as well. 

 

G. Greenwald: You too. Have a good evening. 

 

So that concludes our show for this evening. 

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Zelensky Rejects Trump's Ukraine Proposal; What Happened to the Epstein Files? Plus: Richard Medhurst Facing Criminal Charges in UK for Israel Reporting
System Update #442

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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Before I get to the plan of the show, I want to expel a little bit of frustration and irritation with the fact that every day now, there is a new assault on press freedom on American campuses and elsewhere in American society in the name of protecting Israel – so many of them, in fact, that we cannot possibly report on them all. We can't possibly keep up with them. 

Earlier today, it was reported, for example, that a singer who had been invited to perform at Cornell University had her invitation officially rescinded by the school administration because she had in the past criticized Israel in a way that was, of course, deemed pro-Hamas or antisemitic or whatever. Remember all the right-wing grievances about cancel culture? This is actually continuous cancel culture. 

There have been other pro-Palestinian speakers or other people who have come to speak about the war in Gaza who have been similarly uninvited because the climate has already been successfully created where people are afraid now to have speaking on campus anyone who might criticize Israel because they know that the hammer of the federal government will come smashing down upon them. 

In the course of all of this reporting I've been doing, I've been appearing in a lot of places, doing a lot of interviews and, as usual, having exchanges with people online in good faith, trying to explain what it is that's happening. I spent a lot of time during the Biden administration talking about and denouncing the Biden administration's pressure on Big Tech to remove dissent from the internet, which was an extremely grave assault on free speech and what we have here in so many ways is so much worse. 

We’re seeing people being swept up off the street by plain clothes agents and put into prison for the crime of writing op-eds that are critical of Israel, having our most important and our finest academic research institution stripped of funding, including people trying to find treatments and cures for diseases if they don't sign loyalty pledges saying they won't boycott Israel, or if there's a perception that they aren't loyal to Israel.

We have the Trump administration imposing expanded hate speech codes on campuses just to protect Israel and American Jewish students – and nobody else – and even demanding that Middle East studies programs and their curricula be put under receivership so that the Trump administration is satisfied that there's enough pro-Israel content being taught as part of this curricula and not too much pro-Palestinian content. We’re talking here not about third grade; we're talking about adults in colleges where academic freedom is supposed to reign. 

And watching the number of Trump supporters who have spent the last 10 years pretending to believe in free speech and being outraged by censorship – I know I've said this before. I'm just kind of venting a little bit – hearing from them so often with the most obscene justifications for why this censorship is permissible or just making up outright lies about the people who are being deported, saying they harassed or attacked Jewish students, vandalized buildings or occupied buildings, none of which is true for the cases that we're discussing, I don't even have the words for it any longer for the level of fraud that this movement is guilty of from having branded themselves in a certain way for a full decade only to switch on a dime in the face of one of the most systemic censorship regimes I've ever seen in my life, one that threatens academic freedom and free speech throughout the country, it is really quite nauseating, really quite sickening. 

And it doesn't seem like it has any end in sight because the more the Trump administration does it, every day new measures are being announced. Yesterday, of course, we talked about the new NIH guidelines designed to deny funding and grants to medical researchers if they don't sign a pledge saying they don't participate in the boycott of Israel. 

Every time a new measure is announced, Trump supporters feel even more compelled to support their leader, and they invent new theories all the time, which, by the way, aren't really even new. They sound exactly like the left liberal censorship theories that they spent the last decade mocking. 

You have more censorship being fortified every day from an administration that just three months ago was ushered in, based on an explicit promise to end censorship. JD Vance went to Europe to castigate them for not sharing American values or free speech, by imposing political censorship, and yet the censorship against people who are critical of Israel could not be any greater. 

We're going to have on the show a journalist, Richard Medhurst, who is actually under a very serious and active criminal investigation in the EU for having reported negatively on Israel. That's something, of course, JD Vance submitted when he went to the EU to scold them about their censorship. So, it's just really remarkable to see. 

We're not going to report on it specifically tonight, of all the venting that I just did on it, but it was something that I had to remark upon. 

Before having Richard Medhurst on, we’ll talk about the war in Ukraine – remember that? There have been some significant, if not encouraging, new developments in these negotiations, which we want to tell you about and break down the significance of. Then, we’ll review the relevant facts on these ample Epstein files, which seemed to have disappeared from the news cycle, I think, by intention. 

Let’s get back to the plan.

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 War in Ukraine, even though we don't talk about it anymore – and I don't mean we specifically on the show, sometimes we do, but I mean, we collectively, we as a country – it’s just a war that goes on. People are still dying every day, people are being bombed, people are being chased with drones and there are all kinds of missiles being launched continuously. The dangers of escalation continue to unfold. 

And I have to say the Trump administration, despite my many critiques of much of what they're doing, deserves a lot of credit because they really are following through in a very aggressive way in an attempt to bring about an end to this war diplomatically.

 The reality of the war, whether people like it or not, is that Russia is winning. Russia has been dominating the war; Ukraine has far more of a reason to end the war than Russia does and, of course, whatever diplomatic resolution is achieved will be more favorable to Russia than to Ukraine.

 Yet, we're already seeing people accusing Trump of capitulating to the Russians because the proposals that they're talking about, which are the only ones that have any chance of ending the war, have terms that are favorable to Russia in them for the obvious reason that Russia is winning and Russia would never accept terms not favorable to it.

It seems as though many of the terms that Zelenskyy is going to end up having to accept are ones he's refusing to accept. Trump's frustration with Ukraine is growing and growing and we'll see where that leads. 

First of all, here from CNN earlier today:

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Now, as you might recall, Crimea had for centuries been part of Russia. It ended up being part of Ukraine through a series of complicated transactions that Putin regards as an error. In 2014, when the United States government with Victoria Nuland, John McCain and Chris Murphy, the whole gang, went over and helped overthrow the democratically elected government in Kiev that was more leaning toward Moscow than to the EU – and that was the reason we overthrew them and instead installed a much more pro-EU, pro-U.S. Government. In response to having the EU and the U.S. now dominant inside Ukraine, on the other side of the Russian border, even changing the government, the Russians took Crimea, an extremely geostrategically important spot. It's what gives them access to the Black Sea. The reality is, is that the people of Crimea, nobody doubts this, overwhelmingly, I'm talking about 90%, identify as Russian, not as Ukrainian. They are far more loyal to the Russians, they want to be governed by Moscow and not by Kiev. There's no possibility that the Russians will ever give back Crimea, especially with NATO so involved in Ukraine. 

And so, what the Trump administration is doing is simply saying that we, the United States, will recognize that Crimea is part of Russia. Not that the Ukrainians have to, not that the Europeans have to, just that we, the Americans, will, because the reality is that Crimea is never going back to Ukraine. Yet, that's something Zelenskyy refuses to accept. 

I have news for Zelenskyy. Russia is occupying and controlling Ukraine and those other provinces in Eastern Ukraine, whether he likes it or not. He may wish there were a fantasy world where Ukraine was going to control it, but there is no world in which that will ever happen. And so, obviously, the Americans are trying to work within the Russian reality and the Ukrainian reality when you try to negotiate a war. 

 Steve Witkoff, by all accounts, has been doing an excellent job of genuinely trying to foster an end to this war. What Witkoff and others have been saying is that you need to understand things from the Russian perspective and the Ukrainian perspective to understand what's possible in a deal, which is basic diplomacy. The Biden administration wouldn’t even talk to Russia. The EU won't even talk to Russia. The Trump administration is doing so in a way that will advance this diplomacy. 

The real Russian objective was never to take over all of Ukraine. That might've been their view at the very beginning, I even doubt that. Their concern was what these Eastern provinces of Ukraine, where the vast majority of people are Russian speaking and ethnic Russian and the perception was that the Kiev government had become increasingly brutalizing and abusive of their rights, had disregarded their cultural history and their religious traditions – that was why there was a low-grade civil war, basically a war for independence going back to 2014 between these provinces in Eastern Ukraine and Kiev. 

The Russians, on top of wanting to preserve and protect the rights of the people who live there, also wanted that as a buffer zone. So, if they have these four provinces, it's not as easy for NATO to go up to the Russian border. And that was always the solution: NATO doesn't go in Ukraine, and Crimea stays with Russia, and these four provinces have some sort of semi-autonomous or autonomous status, depending on what they want in a referendum, or join Russia and become part of Russia. That gives the Russians the buffer zone and the security that they need and Ukraine won't be a NATO member as well. And then Ukraine gets some sort of ambiguous security guarantee from some combination of Europe and the U.S. 

This is what the kind of negotiation looked like at the beginning of the war back in March and April 2022, when the two sides were very close to negotiating an agreement that could have averted this war. That was when Boris Johnson and Victoria Nuland swept in and told Zelenskyy that under no circumstances could he agree to that resolution and they would promise to give him all the money and weapons he needed to fight the Russians until the very end. And those are the people who have all this blood on their hands. 

Now, it is always strange that Zelenskyy is in this position where he depends upon the United States, depends upon the Trump administration to fund his war effort, to give them the weapons he needs, to even be able to stay competitive in this war.

 And when that happens, when you're dependent, kind of a vassal state, and that state tells you, “Look, we're not going to continue to support this war, here's an agreement that we think is fair for you” as Trump told Zelenskyy in the White House, “you don't have that many cards to play” and yet Zelenskyy continues to act as though he's the one dictating the terms

The peace plan put forward by the Trump administration didn't even require Ukraine to acknowledge that Crimea belonged to Russia, who cares if Ukraine acknowledges that or not? The peace plan was that the United States would recognize Crimea as being Russian. But the defiance of Zelenskyy, yet again, when he depends upon the Trump administration, of the United States and the American taxpayer to fund his war, was something that, to put it mildly, did not sit well with Trump, and he had one of those reactions he's had to Zelenskyy in the past. 

This is what he posted on Truth Social earlier today:

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Again, it is true that the United States, independent of who you think is right or wrong or what you think the right outcome is, has a very strong interest in ending this war. We're paying for the war (not all of it, the Europeans are paying for a lot of it as well); our stockpiles are being depleted, especially when we also have to feed the Israelis arms and now, we're using a ton of arms ourselves to bomb Yemen. We have this rapidly depleting stockpile. 

The American government should have as its primary concern the interests of the American people and the United States and it has never been in the interests of the American People. I've said this from the very start: to fight a war with Russia, even a proxy war, over who rules various provinces of Eastern Ukraine – whether they stay under the governance of Kiev, whether they end up autonomous or semi-autonomous from the land up with Moscow, where most of the people prefer – what impact does that have on the American people and their material well-being at all? 

The Trump administration seems to be reaching the end of its rope in terms of their willingness to allow Zelenskyy to act as though he has equal leverage in any of this when he clearly doesn't. 

Here's The New York Times yesterday:

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Given all the various conflicts taking place – the green light that the Trump administration gave to the Israelis to destroy Gaza even further, the occupation of the Israelis of increasing amounts of territory both in Syria and Lebanon, their ethnic cleansing taking place with very little attention being paid in the West Bank, the resumption and escalation of the Biden bombing campaign by Trump in Yemen, and the threats that are being issued on a daily bases now to Iran, ones that we covered at length last night, it's absolutely imperative to American national security that this war come to an end to financial security, and economic security and military national security as well. 

If the Trump administration continues to perceive that Zelenskyy simply doesn't want to end the war because he has been told repeatedly by the U.S. that they will give him whatever he wants, at some point, the only solution is to withdraw that funding, withdraw that arming of Ukraine, something the Trump administration hasn't wanted to do yet, because if they did that, it would make a negotiation impossible, Russia would have zero incentive to do so. However, at some point, if the perception continues to be accurate that the impediment to ending this war is Zelenskyy, that will become the only outcome. 

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Remember the Epstein files? As Donald Trump spent 2024 promising to release, the Epstein files were supposedly released back in February when Pam Bondi invited a bunch of right-wing influencers to the White House, handing them big, flamboyant notebooks that said on them “Epstein's files” and they were all smiling thinking that they had an exclusive on all this good stuff that was for the first time going to be publicly revealed. As it turned out, the whole thing was a sham; all these documents had been long ago made public in a whole variety of ways through various litigations and FOIA requests on the part of media outlets. There was absolutely nothing new in any of them. 

The whole issue of the client list and the like, I understand why that gets people interested and excited, but the reality is that we've already seen so much evidence of the people with whom Jeffrey Epstein was cavorting. People of the highest status and wealth throughout the world, who basically brought down Prince Andrew of the British royal family. We know Bill Clinton and Donald Trump both had extensive relationships, social relationships, with Jeffrey Epstein, which doesn't mean that they were on his island or having sex with underage girls, but we know all the people who have been associated with Jeffrey Epstein for a long time. There may be some client list, although Pam Bondi says I haven't seen anything shocking so far.

To me, the much more interesting question is the geopolitical one. Obviously, when you have the most powerful people on the planet being put into compromising positions on Jeffrey Epstein’s island, on his plane, in his mansion in Palm Beach, in his mansion in the middle of Manhattan – and we know that all kinds of tapes and recordings have been made that gives enormous amounts of blackmail power over these people – but the questions of whether foreign governments, whether intelligence agencies in our country or others, in some way, exploited that information… 

There’s always been a question of what the real source of Jeffrey Epstein's massive wealth was. We're talking here about a multibillionaire wealth. He wasn't just somebody who was extremely wealthy. There are zillions of people like those. There are all sorts of ways to become wealthy on that level. We're talking about somebody who had just the kind of wealth that only billionaires have, massive jets that were private, that he took everywhere; $80 to $100 million properties all over the world, the ability to purchase a private island, to donate massive sums of money. Where did that money come from?

 Nobody has ever been able to answer that. We know a couple of things, including his relationship with somebody named Les Wexner, who himself is a multibillionaire with whom Jeffrey Epstein worked. But there's no identifiable expertise that Jeffrey Epstein had. He never did anything on Wall Street that was particularly impressive. The question has always been, was there some government, some intelligence agency behind him with whom he was working, or for whom he was working to create, essentially, a honey trap? That would give these intelligence agencies knowledge of and therefore power over what a lot of people were doing. 

That, to me, is the answer that we don't have any resolution on. Maybe the answer to that is no, but we really haven't had any sort of documentation providing guidance on that one way or the other. 

We know for certain that these files are in the custody of the U.S. government, which has repeatedly promised to release them, pretended to release them back in February, although they didn't. Where are the answers to those questions? When will we get the answers to the questions, if ever? 

What we're being told right now is that the reason we can't have them is that there are redactions that need to take place for national security purposes. I understand that some of these files would need to be redacted before being released. You don't want to release the names, for example, of victims who haven't been identified, who don't want to be identified, of some of the girls who were sex trafficked. That makes sense. Perhaps you don't even want to release the names of the people who were Jeffrey Epstein's associates, but you have no evidence they engaged in any wrongdoing because that can harm their reputation. I understand that as well. 

But why would there be national security redactions unless Jeffrey Epstein had relationships with foreign governments? If Jeffrey Epstein had a relationship with a foreign government, it seems like we could probably narrow down which ones are the most likely and then that leads me to the question of whether or not it's possible that, if those answers exist within the files of the U.S. government, under the Trump administration, we will ever actually see those at all. At the very least, we ought to keep up the pressure. 

Trump has been asked about this on a couple of occasions, including on April 22, which was yesterday. He was in the Oval Office, and he was asked, “Hey, what about those Epstein files?” And here's what he said. 

Video. Donald Trump, C-SPAN2. April 22, 2025.

He's absolutely right about that. There was a full disclosure of the JFK files. Now, there are still some files within the CIA and other places that haven't quite been released. But the documents they released were in unredacted fashion. And that's why I have those questions about the Epstein files. Why are all these redactions necessary for this, but not for the JFK files? 

Again, the thing that concerns me the most is when they start saying that their redactions are for national security purposes. What possible national security implications are there to the Jeffrey Epstein case, unless we're talking about relationships with domestic intelligence agencies or foreign intelligence agencies? 

We do have some clues about some of the people, the extremely wealthy people who surrounded Jeffrey Epstein, who seemed responsible in some way for his ability to construct this very powerful network of highly connected people and what their connections are. 

The Middle East Monitor published in January 2020: “Jeffrey Epstein was blackmailing politicians for Israel’s Mossad, new book claims.” The article said: The claims are being made by the alleged former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe in a soon-to-be-released book “Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales” in which he said that he was the handler of Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell, who was also an Israeli espionage agent and was the one who introduced his daughter and Epstein to Mossad.

Now, let me make clear, I'm not endorsing all this or any of this. This has been out in the ether for a long time. These are very sketchy figures. But we do know for sure that Robert Maxwell, the British publishing tycoon who died under very mysterious circumstances, who was the father of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is Jeffrey Epstein's right-hand person who is now serving a long time in prison for helping him traffic young girls, was a huge supporter of Israel, had all kinds of connections to Israel as well. 

In The New York Times, in 1994, there was this headline:

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That was the end of the lawsuit heaping this kind of praise on Seymour Hersh as an author of great integrity after he had accused Robert Maxwell of having very close ties to Israeli intelligence: “In yesterday's proceedings, a lawyer for the Mirror Group, which was controlled by Mr. Maxwell before his death in November 1991, said it acknowledged that Mr. Hersh "is an author of excellent reputation and of the highest integrity who would never write anything which he did not believe to be true and that he was in this instance fully justified in writing what he did." (The New York Times. August 19, 1994.)

The person who was closest to Jeffrey Epstein was Les Wexner, a big-time Wall Street tycoon and investor, a multibillionaire who unquestionably gave massive amounts of money to Jeffrey Epstein nobody really understood why. He claimed, once it became a scandal, that it was because Jeffrey Epstein had developed these extremely innovative techniques to help Les Wexner save huge amounts of tax money. Even if that were true, the amount of wealth Jeffrey Epstein amassed would be nowhere near any kind of rational relationship to that sort of claim. Les Wexner had a very close relationship to Israel as well. 

The Vanity Fair, in June 2021, had an article, “The Mogul and the Monster: Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Decades-Long Relationship With His Biggest Client,” investigating the many mysteries that still surround the life and crimes of the notorious financier.” “His long-standing business ties with his most prominent client, billionaire retail magnate Leslie Wexner, hold the key.” n 2019, The Times of Israel’s headline is “Netanyahu again goes after Barak for ties to accused billionaire Jeffrey Epstein” (The Times of Israel. July 9, 2019.)

 So, we have a lot of information here that clearly shows that people closest to Jeffrey Epstein themselves were heavily involved with the state of Israel and supporting the state of Israel and having very close operative relationships with Israeli intelligence. There's also reporting, people claim, that Jeffrey Epstein had relationships with Gulf states’ intelligence agencies, including the Emiratis, potentially the Qataris and the Saudis. 

But there's certainly enough here to wonder – and again, I'm not in any way suggesting that this is dispositive. What's dispositive are the records in the possession of the Trump administration and what concerns me, aside from how long it's taking, is that we're being told that they need redactions for national security. And for me, if there's some secret client list that we haven't seen before that contains a bunch of names of people who had sex with Jeffrey Epstein's girls, of course, I guess we should see that, especially if it contains the names of powerful people. I don't think that's the sort of thing that has been concealed, given all the litigation, but I do think what is substantive and what is very possibly out there in documentation is the extent to which Jeffrey Epstein had ties to intelligence agencies, our own or others, and to what extent these operations were part of those intelligence agencies. 

I guess I should say that I have some doubt, given everything we've seen in the Trump administration about the first three months and the importance of Israel and the Gulf States in everything that they're doing, that if such documents exist, they would actually ever see the light of day. 

But given that people have basically stopped talking about the Epstein documents, we thought it was time to remind people that they're still out there, that they have not been released, that there was that fake showing of releasing them at the beginning of the administration that resulted in nothing, the only way to make sure that these documents get released and get released in a form that is actually meaningful is to keep the pressure up. 

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The interview: Richard Medhurst

Richard Medhurst is a truly independent journalist and political commentator born in Damascus, Syria. He regularly hosts live broadcasts discussing all sorts of political controversies from around the globe, U.S. politics and international relations in the Middle East, rooted in an anti-imperialist worldview. In my view, he has become one of the most knowledgeable journalists on a wide variety of issues, including multipolarity. He covered the Assange trial as well as anybody I know. He's also been someone who has covered the civil war for the last six, seven years, the dirty war from the United States in Syria, where he obviously has ties. And for the past several years, two years at least, his focus primarily has been on what a lot of our focus has been, which is on the Israeli war in Gaza. I reached out to him. We've had him on our show several times and we're here to talk about a particularly disturbing case: he is now facing not just the threat, but the very real possibility of criminal prosecution in the EU and in the U.K. as a result of the reporting that he's been doing on Israel, and not just prosecution, but prosecution under terrorism laws. 

G. Greenwald: Richard, I wish we were sitting under better circumstances, but we really appreciate your taking the time to talk to us. We had you on back in August, I think it was when you were actually arrested at Heathrow Airport. Of course, there's always a little personal resonance for me because, as you know, my husband was detained at Heathrow under these anti-terrorism laws. I really got to understand how chilling they were, although his case never went nearly as far as yours have. 

For people who haven't, who haven't been following your case, before we get to the most recent developments, which are even more chilling, talk about, just as a reminder, a kind of summary way, what happened back then and why. 

Richard Medhurst: Yeah, thanks Glenn for having me on and when that happened to David, that was the first time that I also got to understand what this Schedule 7 was, what these terrorism laws were and yeah, so, I landed at Heathrow and they didn't let anyone just embark, they like called me to the front of the plane and I thought it was a Schedule 7, which is when they detain you and it turned out to be like a full arrest, like they put me in cuffs, they jailed me for 24 hours. 

They didn't use Schedule 7, they used section 121A. So, that was like the first time they've ever used that against a journalist. The reason it's so chilling is that if you look at the law, it's very broad, it's very, very broad, so if you give the impression or, you say something that could be completely factual but makes it sound like a lawyer can twist into you supporting X or Y, they can arrest you and charge you and put you in jail for it and that's why it's so chilling for someone as a journalist to be arrested because then you're basically being in prison for doing your job.

They questioned me for about two hours the next day, so I had no idea why I was even there. I was put in this like nasty cell, and then they released me on bail, and I’ve been on bail ever and they've been extending it every three months. 

So, I have to go back on May 15 for now, unless they decide to charge me, to extend it again, or to drop it. And that's almost nine months now that I've been under investigation for so-called terrorism. And it's really stifled my work, and it's stopped me from being able to do my job, because if reporting is now a criminal offense, what's next? And we saw what happened with Julian. Julian was also attacked and put in jail under a different political charge, which was espionage and I feel like they've decided to now use terrorism, which is also political, against me and try to make an example out of me because of my reporting on the genocide in Gaza. 

G. Greenwald: So, there's an important distinction. I want to emphasize that you alluded to it, which is in the case of my husband, who was detained in Heathrow during the Snowden reporting when he was passing through on his way back from Germany to come to Rio, he was detained under Schedule 7. So, he wasn't officially arrested. 

This was a provision that says, if you come to the airport and you have some suspicion of terrorist activity, you can be detained and questioned. They seized his electronic devices.  It was supposed to be nine hours of detention; you can go to the court and convert it to an arrest, and they kept threatening that they would, but they didn't. They ended up letting him go primarily because it became such a big diplomatic scandal. But because they let him go and they didn't arrest him the way they did with you and yours became a more serious case, he was able to sue and in the course of suing, they were forced to say why they detained him and they said it was because of his work with the Snowden reporting. In other words, they had accused him of somehow being a suspect in a terrorism case as a result of the work he was doing, with me, Laura Poitras and the Guardian when it came to journalism. 

Have you had any sort of clear explanation about what the basis was for your arrest and for this ongoing investigation? Do you know for certain why this is? 

Richard Medhurst: No, I really don't. I mean, they obviously hinted at things that they were upset about during the questioning, which I'm not allowed to talk about. But honestly, I can't tell you 100% why I was arrested. I still think that they kind of just got mad at me because of my job. They even made a point that I have a large number of followers, and they were showing me my YouTube channel and my Twitter and commenting on how big my reach is. And making it very clear that basically this was the reason I was a menace, why else would you bring this up? 

So, the point is basically that I'm a bad influence on society or something, and so I think this was really the basis of it. But I'm sure there are other things that they couldn't necessarily arrest me for that annoyed them. For example, a few weeks before I got arrested, I did this massive investigation on Israeli athletes, the football teams, the national football team, the Olympic team, because the Russians had been banned within four days of the Ukraine war, but the Israelis hadn't. And so I showed through the whole social media how all of these athletes were saying genocidal things. 

So, I thought maybe that angered them. Maybe the fact that I covered this gang rape that was happening in the state’s man detention facility. I think it was all of those things. But again, it doesn't mean I deserve to be arrested, but I think in general, my reporting on that and perhaps my reporting on Julian Assange's case as well may have angered the U.K. and U.S. authorities. So, I think it's a mix of these things. And yeah, they certainly escalated it to an arrest. 

I think everybody else who had come through Heathrow, even other journalists, had “only”, in quotation marks, been detained with Schedule 7, as they did to David, they forced you to answer all the questions and hand over your electronics. With me, I was able [to no comment the interview] and they nevertheless made me give my electronics. As a matter of fact, I might face a second case because I've refused to give my password. 

So, this is another law, it's called RIPA [Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000], and it's just as oppressive as the Terrorism Act. If they go to a judge and they get a court order, and you still refuse to give them the passwords, you can go to prison for like two to five years automatically. And I refused to give them the passwords because they took my phones. These are journalistic tools. I'm not going to compromise the safety of sources, acquaintances and other people. I just can't. It's an ethical obligation. So, that's why I refuse. 

G. Greenwald: One of the reasons I'm asking is because, well, I remember, I think I really did start watching you on YouTube, I found your show, when you still had something like 5,000 subscribers. It was really at the beginning. I mean, sometimes people come and say, “Oh, I've been reading your work since your Unclaimed Territory blog, way before Snowden, way before Salon even,” and I always feel like, oh, this is like one of the hardcore original viewers of my show. I kind of feel like that with you, and one of the things that attracted me to your show is that you are extremely passionate, you don't hold back at all, but it's always very, very fact-based. But especially on the topic that people consider sensitive, like Israel and Gaza, you use language that a lot of people would regard as intemperate, you don't really dilute what it is that you're feeling and when you were talking about something like the Israeli destruction of Gaza in particular, I think that is what is appropriate, but it means that you probably do stand out to a government like the U.K., as opposed to a bunch of other people who are speaking critically of Israel and Gaza in sort of more restrained tones. 

But what's really concerning me about your case is that there is this kind of increasing tendency to equate criticism of Israel with support for terrorism. I can't tell you how often, for example, in these cases in the United States, where the students are being arrested and snatched off the street and deported, the only thing they're “guilty” of is protesting the war in Israel and in a lot of people's minds that instantly becomes equated with support for Hamas or support for terrorism, which itself is a crime. And I'm wondering whether, and I know there are some legal constraints that you're operating under because you really do have a serious criminal case pending. 

But whether the theory seems to be that by being so out there, and you've now grown your audience, you have a hundred thousand subscribers, it seems to me that by being so vocally denouncing and condemning the Israeli state, that in some sense it amounts to support for terrorism. 

Does it seem like that's a theory that is being used to justify your criminal prosecution? 

Richard Medhurst: It is. It absolutely is. What they did to me in Austria afterward, where they continued this case, so they ambushed me again, not on a plane, but they lured me to immigration. And you know this thing they've been doing with Mahmoud Khalil in the U.S., where they threatened to rescind his green card? So, about a month before that, they started it with me in Austria. They told me to come to the immigration authorities, and I'd never been summoned there in my life. 

So, I knew something was up. They threatened to take away my permanent residency because of my reporting. If that wasn't enough, they then had these intelligence agents ambush me with a search warrant. I asked them what unit they were; they told me very explicitly that they're the equivalent of MI5 in Austria. 

They served you with a search warrant and they accused me in the warrant of being a Hamas member and not just like a member, but in the military wing. They specifically cited the Kassan brigades and again, when I heard that, I couldn't help but burst out laughing. I was like this must be a dream or something, this is madness, and they're not only – you'll be familiar with this, Glenn, within the U.S. legal system, I think it's called “alleged conduct.” So, when you add like a bunch of narrative in a prosecution to kind of paint someone as a villain, they're not additional charges, but they make you look bad and they could lead to harsher sentencing, that's what they did in the warrant, they added these things like about rape on October 7 and like trying to connect me to those things. 

So, yeah, they basically equated all of my reporting with not just terrorism, like all of the crimes that they said happened on October 7, and they not only threaten to take away my residency, but they also accuse me of being an actual member of the organization of Hamas. 

So yeah, it's actually gone that far and I'm shocked that they can even subject me to two investigations in two countries. I mean, just because of my reporting. Again, it has 100% to do with my reporting, nothing else. The examples they've cited are also outlandish. Like, one of the things the prosecutor in Vienna says in the warrant is, like, I allegedly showed a video of Hamas fighters eating triangle-shaped desserts. I don't even know what to say to all this, but I'm really starting to understand that they have a target on my back. 

And just to underscore your point about the way that I'm reporting things, I think that they really just want to stop me from doing my job, put me behind bars, or just kind like wage lawfare and psychological warfare against me because I expose… 

G. Greenwald: We lost Richard briefly - It just seems to be a sketchy internet connection. 

But a lot of this has become normalized in the sense that I can't even count at this point how many people we've had on our show, who report critically on Israel, searched and seized; they've had their devices taken. Obviously, part of this is to create a climate where people are afraid, where they know that if they criticize Israel too, they might end up in these kinds of situations, but in your case, it seems to have really gone a lot further in that it wasn't just that you had this kind of intimidating moment at Heathrow, it is now continuing to the point where you are facing the real prospect that you could be forced to go back to the U.K. and have to actually confront an indictment and potentially a trial under terrorism laws based on a very kind of vague theory about what you might have done that might have prompted the view that you're in some way supporting Hamas. Where is the current situation and what are the choices that you are facing? 

Richard Medhurst: They keep extending the investigation every quarter, every three months. The police apply for that, and they always get permission, of course. So that's one option for them is to keep me in a permanent state of limbo where I can't work properly and they still get to benefit from me being silent and them not having to take it to court and deal with the drama of an attack on press freedom and everything that would ensue. 

I tried to explain that I'm Christian, they don't allow Christians in Hamas. And their response is, “We're just following orders, it's not up to us, we're just executing the warrant. And they came in here in my studio, in my home, they ransacked the place. I mean, they did everything but rob me. They took thousands of euros worth of gear, every computer I've owned, every piece of gear I've bought since I started this job. And I think that was another attempt to kneecap me, similarly to how, in Heathrow, they took my microphones, like analog wired microphones. What are you going to investigate with an analog microphone? It's just a screw with you to stop you from working. So, I think there was a very clear sequel to what they’d done in Heathrow. And now they're trying to corner me so that they either put me in jail in England or they put me in jail here or make my life hell in both countries and it's beyond an escalation. It's just madness, frankly. 

G. Greenwald: Yeah, I mean, even if it doesn't end up going to those extremes and there's by no means a guarantee that it won't, just the intimidation alone, the fact that you have to constantly have this on your mind automatically detracts from the work that you're able to do. But it also, again, is intended by design to send a signal to other people who are similarly critical of Israel in a similar way within the EU that if you think you can say what you want about Israel, you better think again, because we will use the criminal force of law to harass you in very serious ways and even threaten you with imprisonment. 

It's actually amazing how quickly these things get normalized and the fact that it's gotten this far in your case with very little mainstream media attention, of course, needless to say, it just gives you a kind of sense for how decayed things become on the press freedom front when it comes to this issue. 

In terms of people who might want to help with your work, I'm sure you have defense costs, I'm sure you have other costs in terms of the things that they've taken, how would it be that people can help you and follow your work as well? 

Richard Medhurst: I have a GoFundMe set up, I don't know the link exactly, but patreon.com/richardmedhurst, that's where people can also donate and I'll have updates about my case on my Twitter, so just look up Richard Medhurst on Twitter and you'll find my account. 

And yeah, just a short parenthesis on press coverage, the British press, like six months later, haven't said a word about what happened to me. They didn't report on the U.N. letter that was sent to Keir Starmer as well, signed by four U.N. special rapporteurs. The Austrian press at least covered the raid that happened to me, and they covered it in a more or less balanced or neutral way. So, I just thought I'd say that because I think it once again underscores how sold out the whole U.K. press establishment is. 

G. Greenwald: Yeah, no question about it. 

All right. Well, we’re here for you whenever you need to come on, want to come on and want to talk about anything. We're definitely here for you. We are rooting for you and supporting you. I really regard your case as a serious threat to press freedom, but one that, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly common. I wish I could say it's so aberrational and so extraordinary, but it really, really isn't. And it's always great to see you. I hope you take care of yourself and stay in touch, and we'll talk soon. 


Follow Richard Medhurst on X: https://twitter.com/richimedhurst

Contribute to his GoFundMe Campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-richard-medhursts-journalism

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Pentagon in Turmoil Over Iran Policy as Israel Pushes for War; Lee Fang on New NIH Censorship Policy Threatening Medical Researchers
System Update #441

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

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There is a highly unusual and consequential purge of some of the highest national security officials taking place. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in particular, has had his long-time and most trusted confidants, whom he chose just two months ago for the most influential policy-making positions reporting directly to him, now fired. 

While this sort of bureaucratic intrigue is often opaque in Washington – and Hegseth, the ultimate team player for Trump, is insisting that there is nothing out of the ordinary taking place – one cannot help but notice that several of his fallen advisors are among the most vocal skeptics, if not outright opponents, of a U.S. military conflict with Iran, beginning with his long-time friend and former marine Dan Caldwell. 

We'll examine what is clear in all of these events, and whether the war drums beating more and more loudly every day in Washington against Tehran can't really be stopped. 

 

Then, the independent investigative journalist, Lee Fang, has written today on his Substack about the new NIH regulations. He'll be with us tonight to discuss them, but also the broader implications of the censorship campaigns that they represent. 

 

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One of the things that you realize for the first time if you live outside of the United States is just how aberrational it is for a country to constantly spend its time talking about which country it ought to go to war with next. 

It's usually unheard of for most countries to even consider the possibility of a war with another country or bombing other countries or attacking other countries, let alone to actually do so. In the United States, we have an endless array, a really, literally endless array of military conflicts, bombing campaigns, wars, invasions, and all kinds of covert actions in other countries as well. 

Poll after poll constantly demonstrate that people are eager for an end to endless wars, that these wars are not in the interest of American citizens or American interests. Candidates who run on a platform of being anti-war, of avoiding war, as Barack Obama did, as Donald Trump did, tend to do extremely well because they are telling the American people what they already want and believe, which is that these wars are being fought in a way that not only doesn't benefit their lives, but in so many ways undermines and subverts and prejudices it. 

The war in Iraq is something that should have put an end to this forever. It was the supreme expression of a war begun and sold based on falsehoods and lies, not just about the cause of the war, but also how the war would end up being prosecuted. We were told it'd be over in a few weeks. “We're so much more powerful than Iraq. We're just gonna remove the Saddam Hussein regime. We're gonna be welcomed as liberators. It's gonna be quick in and quick out. And then we're gonna have freedom and democracy spreading throughout the Middle East.” Absolutely none of that happened. 

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